


Memories

by darkblueballoon



Category: The Losers (Comic), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-11
Updated: 2012-05-11
Packaged: 2017-11-05 04:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkblueballoon/pseuds/darkblueballoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cougar takes a brief stroll down memory lane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories

He had many memories, too many that he didn’t want and not enough of the ones he did. There were three he chose to remember. Mazatlan was surest in his mind’s eye, the least prone to subtle shifts of perception and emphasis – always bold with colour and music and life and the faint flicker of candle light. If he concentrated he could almost feel the fluttering warmth of the flame against his outstretched finger tips. 

 

The second, the Pass was monochrome red with the heat of an inferno as it burned the skin on his face; not nearly so agonising as the memory of the angelitos looking at him with such relief and hope and trust. The road to hell was paved with good intentions, after all, and Cougar had laid a few of the paving slabs himself that day.

 

The final place he would remember had no name that Cougar knew, an overhang of rock in the middle of some jungle – he couldn’t remember which. It was all pouring rain and Jensen singing about April showers and a slip in the mud that lead to what was simultaneously the best and worst kiss of his life, the experience topped off with the sound of footsteps squelching through the mud and a wolf whistle and a gleeful whoop from Pooch as he demanded his winnings from a grumbling Roque while Clay hovered between looking unnerved and smirking. 

 

If he’s only allowed to take three memories with him, he thinks that these are the three that made him; these are the three he’ll choose and hold close.

 

Not the memories of his family that make his heart twinge when he remembers that his memories of his mother singing as she cooked and everyone doting on the youngest child in the family had been tainted by the way that his mother had flinched away from him when he had made an unthinking comment about Jensen and the phone call he had received from Maria telling him it might be best if he didn’t attend his father’s funeral. His mother hadn’t even wanted him to know that the only person not to turn away had been hit by a car while he was away on a mission but Maria had told him, her final act as his sister. 

 

He didn’t want to remember how many missions had been renamed Operation Shitstorm by Jensen (he numbered them so that they almost sounded like a line of monarchs – Operation Shitstorm XII, the Puffin Incident which followed Operation Shitstorm XI, the Thermite Episode) or what had happened to the team after the Pass.

 

And Jensen... Jensen was something else entirely. Once upon a time Cougar had had something of a reputation and been proud of it to a certain degree. But he had given up on casual sex when he had finally noticed the way he had shifted from voluptuous brunettes to tall and blonde with glasses an optional extra and he would always be left feeling dissatisfied. Cougar knew he chose that first day, when he had still been feeling a little giddy over the unexpected success of his accidental confession and his teams’ response to it, because he wanted to remember the tangle of emotion rather than the tangle of limbs, however satisfying it had been, because it was proof that he was able to feel that and finally began to understand in ways he never really had before why Pooch’s driving force was his need to see Jolene and the kids again.

 

Cougar could be content with those memories even if he couldn’t be happy to have to choose at all. But they would sustain him while he searched for the others he knew were already there and waited for the rest to arrive. Because really, the afterlife isn’t nearly as interesting as some people make it sound. But he hopes to wait years before he hears Jensen’s chatter or Pooch’s laugh. He has his three memories – the good, the bad and the safe – and for now that’s enough.


End file.
